Guest Blog: 5 Steps for Effective Vendor Fair Follow Up

Our first guest blogger is actually a former client of mine. Sylvie was one of the first students in my Direct Sales Virtual Academy and I was thrilled to haver her share her expertise with you in the below guest blog post.

Trade shows or vendor fairs are great ways to meet potential new customers and recruits IF you do the proper follow-up. Otherwise, you are wasting your time, energy and money. So how do you go about following up?

First you need to clear you calendar the week after the show so you have time set aside for follow up. You also want to plan an event/your own party for the week after that. This gives you an opportunity to invite people to go the next step with you.

Next, you need to collect information from qualified leads. I put my display table at the back of the booth so I am up front, ready to interact with visitors. I thought out my display very carefully and let it be the draw. When people enter the booth, I know they have some level of interest and I immediately engage them in conversation – about them. Then it is natural to ask, would you like to keep in touch and receive tips and ideas? I give them a variation of the “Guest Care Card” to fill out (make sure it is clear you will be adding them to your mailing list). Encourage them to circle a number. I often joke and say I will consider it a 10 if they don’t put anything… Then I add my own little notes about the conversation we had.

Enter all the contact information into an excel spreadsheet with a column for each field. This allows you to order the data and see who is most interested in hosting a party or hearing more about your opportunity. You will want to start with those. It also allows you to export to your emailing program (constant contact, aweber, mailchimp etc) as well as the program you use for follow up (outlook, client angel etc). When the show is over several days, I have enlisted help for this data entry each evening.

Send an email as soon after the end of the show as possible – preferably the next day. It could be your latest newsletter just slightly reworded to remind them you met at the show. In that email invite them to the event you have planned for the following week.

Give a phone call to each contact within a week to ten days of the end of the show. Give them a reminder of what your booth was featuring – they saw a LOT of booths that day! Use the notes you made on the card to engage them in conversation – about them! Then invite them to the event you have planned or whatever next step you think would be appropriate for them given their level of interest indicated on the card.

The fortune is in the nurturing of the relationship you started at the trade show. Keep that connection growing with a thorough follow up.

Sylvie Drader has been a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator since 2007. She started because she needed something positive to focus on, but she keeps going because it is so much fun to create unique and personal cards people cherish. Along the way she has earned several awards and incentive trips as she keeps learning and growing –both personally and in her business. You can connect with her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CreateWithPaper.